


Galileo's Daughter

by MaliciaStarling



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Halloween, Jane's dad dies, Jane-centric, Minor Character Death, mentions of cancer and drug treatments
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-31
Updated: 2013-10-31
Packaged: 2017-12-31 02:45:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1026350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaliciaStarling/pseuds/MaliciaStarling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jane's childhood as told through Halloween costumes and her basically being a daddy's girl.  Most of it takes place before the first Thor with just a paragraph or so coming after the first movie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Galileo's Daughter

**Author's Note:**

> These are not my characters I'm just borrowing them. 
> 
> Special thanks go to my friend Avatar-trisana on tumblr who read it for the Jewish customs I mention. Thanks dearie :) (In my head canon Jane Foster is Jewish). But I worked on it after so any mistakes are totally my fault.

Darcy loves Halloween she goes all out decorating and getting costumes ready.  She’ll even skip parts of parties to go trick or treating.  She figures she’s short enough that people will let her get away with it if she doesn’t show too much cleavage.  Jane is another story.  “Oh come on Jane you deserve some fun!” wails Darcy waving a generic witch costume in front of Jane.  It reminds Jane of something else entirely and for a moment she considers telling Darcy about it but in the end she doesn’t trust herself to reveal the fact that she briefly thought it was a nun’s costume.  Telling that story would involve tears and tears are unprofessional in front of a new intern she thinks. But she does spend the next few hours reminiscing.

Jane is around seven years old when she finds out about Sister Maria Celeste daughter of Galileo Galilei.  Her parents had taught her about Galileo and because she loved history she checked out a book about him at the library.  “Daddy,” she said breathlessly dragging the huge book with her, “I want to be with you forever, I’m going to be a nun.”

That made her dad burn his tongue on his fresh coffee. “But sweetie remember how we talked about how you’re going to have your Bat Mitzvah when you’re 13?”

Jane nods emphatically, “of course daddy!”

“But you can’t be Catholic and have a Bat Mitzvah Janie.”

This gives Jane pause. “But why not? Uncle is an atheist and Jewish and still goes to Temple with us on holidays.”

“Well with Catholicism you can’t do all three, and you can’t be an atheist and be Catholic.  Its just different.”

Theological considerations are way over Jane’s head and she’s focused on reading the paragraph again.  Her daddy peers over her shoulder to see what Jane’s reading.

“It says here daddy that Sister Maria Celeste wanted to be with her daddy forever and so she became a nun to stay near him always.  That’s what I want to do Daddy. I’m going to help you research and we’ll discover stars together.”  Mommy and Daddy had already taken Jane all bundled up against the cold nights countless times to learn the constellations and peek through the telescope at the stars.

“That was a very long time ago you don’t have to be a nun to help daddy with his research.”  Jane remains unconvinced because it seems being a nun is the only way to get out of getting married and having babies.  She’s not really sure why all ladies have to get married and have babies but that’s what all the other girls at school have been saying.  They laugh at Jane for not wanting to play house all the time.  Jane has tried multiple times to play house with them but would much rather order take out like Daddy or pretend to use a toaster to make Pop Tarts.  She tries explaining this to Daddy before he leaves to teach his lecture but he doesn’t get it. Eventually Jane’s mother gets home and has the idea to start reading to Jane from Contact by Carl Sagan.

Jane knows that author, because Daddy and Mommy read to her from The Pale Blue Dot all the time.

So for Halloween she lets herself be convinced out of being Galileo’s daughter and settles for being Ellie and tells everyone how she’s going to travel through space and time just like Ellie Arroway.  Most people just ask her why she didn’t choose something like Princess Leia because she’s got a gun.  Jane admits Leia is pretty cool but she’s been Leia before.

When Jane is ten she discovers Maria Mitchell who made lots of discoveries with her little telescope and became famous all over America.  That year people lost interest in her explanations as soon as the words “lady astronomer who made history,” but lots of people liked her big fluffy dress.  

At age eleven she wants to be a superhero, preferably Wonder Woman or Lois Lane.  That is until everyone points out that Lois Lane is not a superhero just the lady that Superman saves all the time.  Jane who knows her comics knows Lois does plenty of investigative reporting and that’s almost like Mom and Dad’s scientific research.

When Mommy asks her why she doesn’t want to be an astronaut like they’d planned after last Halloween Jane shrugs and says they did that when she was little and besides everyone else was going as a superhero.  So Jane settles for Wonder Woman and she has fun on Halloween because no one asks her who she is.  That’s when Jane learns the difference between famous and just important.  She sorta wishes that there were more famous and important lady scientists.  Also she’s grateful she’s trick-or-treating inside apartment complexes because she’s cold just going the little distance outside.

When she’s twelve Jane decides that she’s going to be Marie Curie.  Her Dad grins and kisses her cheek.  “That’s my little scientist!”

She doesn’t tell them that she knows what his treatment options are and that if it wasn’t for Marie Curie that they wouldn’t have a chance against the cancer. So she goes as a real life scientist again because they can make a difference.  She’ll never forget the way pot smoke would make her cough and that they switched to making special brownies for Dad. He was so skinny and tired that sometimes he couldn’t even hold up his books to read and Jane found a textbook stand in their storage locker in the apartment buildings basement.  He dies just after her thirteenth birthday.

After her father’s funeral Grandma says she’ll understand if Jane doesn’t want to do her Bat Mitzvah.  Jane is angry at God.  She wants to know if maybe studying the Torah will reveal to her why Daddy had to die.

She doesn’t find out why Daddy dies but learning about her ancestors and singing out the verses in front of everyone in Temple is calming to her.  She sees Grandma and Mom smile.  It is the first time they’ve smiled since Daddy died. “You have a beautiful voice my little Janie, don’t you ever let anyone silence you.” says Grandma.

That year she goes as Princess Leia.  She and Daddy loved Star Wars and even though Leia doesn’t have a light saber she thinks maybe she understands how Leia felt when she watched Alderaan get blown up.  Everyone says they love her costume and Jane loves it too, it reminds her of being little and holding her dad’s hand.  He’d been Darth Vader but he couldn’t wear the helmet because it scared Jane.  Mom makes a snaps a photo and puts it in the Halloween frame.

When she’s fourteen Jane and her mother go to see Contact in theaters.  Jane hasn’t reread Contact in years, and according to Jewish law she’s a woman now.  But as she’s watching the movie she remembers herself as a little girl who wanted to become a nun to be with her Daddy forever.  

She has big choices to make that year, they let her into highschool a year early and now there’s no reason she has to stay at high school for longer than three years total.  That means if she wants to go to college at sixteen she needs to buckle down and study and go to night school.  

Jane feels old at fourteen, she’s probably going to go to college two years early and Grandma thinks she’s stopped growing.  She looks at herself in the mirror and remembers that Halloween is just around the corner but she doesn’t have time for that.  Mom pokes her head into Jane’s room and tells her that she can do whatever she wants with her life, she’ll be ok if Jane goes off to college early.  “I just want you to be happy, Dad would have wanted you to be happy too.”

Jane hugs her mom and thanks her. She signs up for night classes.

On Halloween she’s exhausted from the extra homework (AP classes and night classes mean that Jane hasn’t been sleeping more than six hours since late August).  Mom makes her breakfast that morning talking about their Halloween plans.

“Can’t mom, I’ve got class.”

“Oh.”  Mom’s face is hardly occupied with a smile nowadays so when her hopeful smile disappears at Jane’s refusal Jane feels it like punch to the stomach.

“Its just that I don’t have anything ready.”  Jane is flustered and she doesn’t know how to make things better.

“Oh that’s no problem Jane I’ll just go and try to find you a costume.  It’ll be great you’ll see!”  Jane nods and reaches for her Poptart and her backpack, hoping Mom won’t find anything and they can just watch a scary movie.  When she gets home that evening she dumps her books in her room and looks forward to getting Halloween over and done with so she get hit the books.

“Mom?  Its ok if you didn’t find something good for me to wear I can’t trick or treat for too long anyways.”  Jane’s voice falters when her mom comes out of her room holding three costumes on hangers. A nun, Ellie Arroway, or an astronaut.  

“Sister Maria Celeste,” Jane breathes. touching the lovely nun’s outfit that looks fit for a movie set and not from some the Halloween section at the Payless. There are tears in Mom’s eyes.  “How did you remember?” she says quietly rubbing the rosary through her fingers.

“Your father kept a journal of your progress Janie.  He always felt bad that he crushed your dreams of being with him forever and I thought well, it was worth a shot.” Jane was tearing up but she was busy taking her jacket off and pulled it over her head gently and Mom helped her adjust the wimple.

The first house they go to is a friend of theirs, “Janie dear is that you? Who are you supposed to be?”

“Sister Maria Celeste, born Virginia to Galileo Galilei. She became a nun so she could live close to her father during his confinement.”

That was the last time she went trick or treating with her mother but the Halloween collection is finally complete.  As she puts the costume away in boxes to go to college she leaves it with Mom for safekeeping.

****

Years later Darcy comes with Jane for the awkward explanation of why ominous shadowy government men came knocking on her door.  Mom takes the opportunity to shove lots of albums on Darcy.  Jane rolls her eyes sits back to content herself with some work on her laptop. Darcy giggles and laughs with Jane’s mom and proclaims little Jane looked just as adorable star gazing as grown up Jane. Jane rolls her eyes and tries not to hide her face in a pillow.  Then she pops some earbuds in.

“Jane whats with the wimple?” Darcy says in disbelief after pulling them out of Jane’s ears.  

**Jane looks up from her work, “Oh I was Sister Maria Celeste, daughter of Galileo.”**

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Halloween I hope you liked it!


End file.
